In the computing industry, many platforms and software are built to co-exist and interact with other software products to provide an integrated and improved experience for the platform or software. However, to make sure that the platforms and software that host and/or integrate other pieces of software operate correctly, the software being integrated to the base product should be certified to run smoothly when integrated to the base product. To maintain quality control over a base product that integrates other software products, many organizations will provide a software certification process. The software certification process enables an end user to confidently decide which software components they choose to integrate with a base product or platform.
Many of these same organizations that want to provide a software certification process will also have a defect tracking system. A defect tracking system allows individuals or groups of developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively.
A problem faced by many organizations developing and maintaining software is the number of internal products that are used to assist and support the product development life cycle. For instance, the above description has mentioned at least two different support products used by an organization in providing a quality product. Reducing the number of these support programs for product development, while still providing the same support for the product, would help to reduce confusion associated with using multiple support products and provide a uniform interface for the product development lifecycle and product maintenance.